For the first time, bariatric surgery, which includes a procedure to reduce the size of the stomach to help decrease food intake, has been added to a list of medical treatments covered under a health insurance program for current and retired national government workers, including members of Parliament and Supreme Court judges.

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Poverty and malnutrition continues to affect millions of poor Indians, but among the country’s growing middle and upper class, many are becoming dangerously large as they have more to spend on food and fattening Western fast foods gain popularity. A 2011 report in the medical journal Lancet found that 7.3% of India’s 1.2 billion population was overweight and 1.2% obese. It added that one in every five people across the country has at least one chronic disease like cardiovascular, respiratory and metabolic disorders, many of which are caused by increasingly unhealthy lifestyles.

The World Health Organization, meanwhile, predicts that 31% of Indian men aged 30 or above will be overweight by 2015. For women, the figure is 29%.

There are no figures on how the problem affects government officials.

Weight loss operations are growing in popularity in India as evidence builds in their ability to help tackle diabetes, heart disease and other obesity-related conditions.

“It was being demanded by beneficiaries for quite a long time, that’s why the government decided to include it,” Dr. Manoj Jain, senior chief medical officer at the Ministry of Health, told The Wall Street Journal.

“Before the government was considering it on a case-to-case basis,” he added.

Costs vary from hospital to hospital for weight-loss surgery.
At Apollo Hospitals, that first carried out weight loss surgeries in 2005, for example, the surgery starts at a cost of around 340,000 rupees ($5,462). Meanwhile, at Sir J.J. Hospital, a government-run facility in Mumbai, surgeries have been performed for just 160,000 rupees ($2,565).

“Such patients would need a special enclosure, a separate bathroom set up, a different bed, wider doors, everything has to be compatible for them. There’s an extra cost in managing these patients,” said Mr. Palaniappan the surgeon.

Mr. Palaniappan welcomed the decision taken by the Ministry of Health, saying it could also change how India’s private insurance companies operate to include weight loss operations often deemed cosmetic surgeries and outside the scope of health insurance programs.

New guidelines issued by the ministry for the program for government workers said patients with a body mass index of 40 or more (a level considered morbidly obese) or someone with a BMI of 35 or above (considered obese) also suffering from related conditions, such as diabetes or hypertension, would be eligible for a reimbursement on weight-loss surgery.

BMI is a calculation based on a person’s height and weight. It ranges from 15 to 40. Mr. Palaniappan said a BMI of 25 was healthy worldwide, but 22.5 was considered ideal for Indians, as South Asians are particularly prone to weight-related diseases such as diabetes and heart disease.

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